


the games you play are growing old

by olivemartini



Category: Red Queen - Victoria Aveyard
Genre: Angst, F/F, Pre-Relationship, hidden moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-16 23:11:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15447936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: In the beginning, it starts because Evangeline almost killed her.





	the games you play are growing old

In the beginning, it starts because Evangeline almost killed her.

"I'm sorry,"  She says, standing in the middle of the room like she is a stranger instead of the one person that Elane thought she could trust with every fiber of her being, looking for the first time like she is unsure of what to do.  "I didn't know."

The apology is nice ( _a gesture, an effort, because Evangeline never apologizes, not to her mother or her father or brother and definitely not to her_ ) and yet it cannot take away the sting of the morning, where Elane found herself lying flat on the sandy floor of the training arena with her own blood sinking into the ground around her and thinking that  _this is it, this is the end of it, I am dying over a crown that I never even wanted to win, sacrificed in the name of a future that is so far away from us both._ The healers had come running, but not fast enough, because they were only a group of children in their second year of training and children are not supposed to be capable of this.  No one so small should be able to have that much power pour off of her fingertips, or be able to know how to use it.

But Evangeline had.  And it was the whole center of the issue, because this was not an accident on the playground or a missed landing in the training field. Elane had sat by when the anger takes her over, haunting the doorways when she walks into her rooms of metal and wrenches it all apart, shredding the sculptures together and pulling them into pieces and pushing them into new shapes like it's some sort of therapy for her.  Elane had watched her get stronger.

( _Not, of course, that she knows she was watching, so it's not like she can throw that back in her face.  There are few perks to being skilled only with the ability to be a shadow, but seeing her, always, is one of them._ )

It was a decision, really, is what it was.  One where they faced each other in the arena even thought they were so unevenly matched that it was laughable, and after a few minutes where Evangeline threw around her shards and Elane darted away from them, she had heard all the beams scattered throughout the training yard wrench apart into a million shining daggers turned outwards, where they would fly through the air and cover every inch of the ground where Elane could be standing.

"Eva,"  Elane had said, even though it was breaking the delicate dance between them, even though a surrender is not the way of the silvers, because there would be nothing good to come of this.  "Please.  I give up."

 _I give up,_ she had said, but it didn't matter, but Evangeline was fighting a different opponent.  Her father was watching, leaning down over the balcony, and she was too busy vying for his love to wonder what an unleashing of this kind might have done, so Elane goes transparent again, darting towards one of the banks that might be able to hide her from the worst of it, but then she is falling, and the metal is raining down on her,  _into_ her, and the blood is spilling out around her, and the trainer is yelling for Evangeline to stop, and Elane doesn't even bother to hide anymore, because the illusion is taking more strength than she has to give.

"You did."  Elane pushes herself away from the window, turning to face.  There are no marks on her now, not even scars, not even a twinge of pain through her muscle.  Elane almost wishes that there were.  The proof of their sins are so easy to wash away.  "Don't pretend like you didn't."

"I had to."  Evangeline took a step forward into the room, swallowing hard, and Elane is filled with that  _idea_ again, the one that keeps cropping up when the two of them are alone, about how maybe what she feels for her is not what friendship is supposed to feel like.  But are they anything to each other, anything real, when Evagenline does not hesistate to cut her apart?  At least she's sorry.  At least she cares enough to cry.  "You know why I had to."

"To be the best."

"To be his."   _Cal._ The reminder sours the room, their predetermined destinies rising up between them.  It makes Elane want to flicker and disappear.  No matter how good Evangeline is at everything else, Elane will always be the best at hiding.  "That's what all of this is about, isn't it?"

It's ridiculous, really, to be sitting there at thirteen and talking about marriage, talking about a marriage so important that she tore her best friend apart to get just one inch closer to get to it.  "You'd make a good queen,"  Elane says, instead of all the other things that she is wanting to talk about, like how she just heard that her mother had a best friend who was not just her best friend and isn't that funny, and that she doesn't think that those Calore boys are that cute so she doesn't get the fuss, and how she also wishes that Evangeline would hold her hand all the time, not just when she's bleeding out underneath a healer's hands.  

Evangeline throws her head back and lets a smile steal across her face.  Elane can't tell if it's real or not.  She's stopped tryin to keep track.  "So would you."

"No."  Shadows are not strong.  Evangeline- Evangeline is strong.  "I'm only good when I'm around you."

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


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